Egypt and Summit activities

Thursday، 11 June 2015 12:00 AM

AAA

The Summit is an opportunity for meetings, convened by President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, with the leaders of the 26 countries representing the three economic blocs ;COMESA, SADC and EAC, to discuss ways to promote and develop the African continent economically and reach a political understanding between the African countries.

As for the Summit activities, Trade and Industry Minister Mounir Fakhri Abdel-Nour said that the agreements signed by the leaders opens a new chapter in the economic and trade relations between Egypt and the African continent and will expand and increase the trade volume and facilitate the movement of goods and services among the 26 countries participated in this agreement and the free transportation of capitals and personnel.

Abdel-Nour added that the free trade zone will provide a lot of advantages such as reducing the imposed tariffs on goods and cost of transport and developing the trade, logistic services and infrastructure to achieve a quantum leap in the economies of those countries.

This agreement represents a strong starting point for Egyptian companies in various sectors to enter the African markets, that will lead to an increase in exports, especially that the Egyptian products are popular in those markets due to their quality and competitive prices to meet the needs of those countries of goods and services.

For his part, Head of the Commercial Representation and Chairman of secretariat coordinating of conference Ali al- Leithy said that the volume of joint trade of member States has grown in recent years from 30.6 billion dollar in 2004 to 102.6 billion dollar in 2014, indicating that the volume of trade has tripled in 10 years, this is due to the free trade agreements between the three blocs.

The report of the Commercial Representation Body said that the volume of bilateral trade of COMESA has seen noticeable growth over the past years from 8 billion dollar in 2004 to 22 billion dollar in 2014, while the volume of bilateral trade of SADC increased from 20 billion dollar in 2004 to 72 billion dollar in 2014, whereas the EAC rose from 2.6 billion dollar in 2004 to 8.6 billion dollar in 2014.

Therefore, the GDP of the three blocs reached 1.2 trillion dollar in 2013, and the volume of bilateral trade of African continent has increased from 6.2 billion dollar in 2005 to 1.2 trillion dollar in 2013. This means that the volume of trade has doubled in less than 10 years, while the number of the continent's population in 2013 has reached 1110 million and its GDP reached 2.3 trillion dollar.